Maggie MacKeever (27 page)

Delphine had been laboring under a strong sense of misusage ever since their arrival at Bellamy House, and an even stronger conviction that her mistress would land in the briars; and the information that the countess had disappeared set the seal to her distress. Vividly recalling the mishaps that had plagued her mistress, Delphine feared that Lady Tess had again come to grief.

As was clearly necessary, Delphine raised the alarm. However, she was herself in a state of no small perturbation, and consequently took her unhappy news not to one of the people who might have dealt competently with the emergency, such as the Duchess of Bellamy or the duke, but to Lucille, who responded with such strong hysterics that the entire household was set on its ear.

They were all crowded in the front drawing-room, in various stages of undress, the dowager in a huge nightcap that made her look like a bad-tempered chef, and Constant wearing a violently crimson dressing gown with a tasseled Turkish cap upon his head. Lucille was stretched out on the sofa, while Delphine waved burnt feathers under her nose; Drusilla wandered up and down the room, totally unconcerned with anything but how this development might benefit herself; and Clio, released from her room by no less than the duke himself, stood by the doorway with one arm around a sleepy Evelyn.

“Well-a-day!” pronounced Sapphira, who didn’t seem the least bit upset that one of her daughters was stretched out in a dead faint, while the other was looking remarkably like a tart in an extremely revealing robe. “What’s missing, besides that abominable wench?”

“Very little,” Giles replied quickly, forestalling indignant comment from both Clio and Delphine. “Some odd pieces of silver and porcelain, but nothing of particular value. I do not know what may have been taken from Tess’s room.”

‘‘No need to call in Bow Street then.” Sapphira shot a look at Clio. “Tess probably took them herself, and we’d hardly want Clio’s companion hauled before the magistrates. Good riddance to bad rubbish! I always knew that one was no better than she should be.”

“How dare you say that about Tess!” cried Clio, clutching Evelyn so tightly that he winced. “She may be hurt, or worse! Lying somewhere in the streets, struck down!”

“If that one’s lying somewhere,” offered Drusilla idly, “it’s by choice. And I can imagine with whom!”

“That rankles, does it?” inquired her mother, with interest. “I thought it might. Chuckle-head!”

Fortunately for family relations, Lucille returned to her senses and, with Delphine’s assistance, managed to sit up.
“Maman!”
she moaned. “We’ve been robbed! That man who was skulking about the house—I told you how it would be!”

Sapphira greeted this observation with the bad temper for which she was celebrated, in one breath chastising her daughter for hen-wittedness, in the next accusing her of arranging the entire thing for the sole purpose of creating a scene.

“Oh, do hush,
Maman,”
interrupted the duke. “This is a serious business. You may badger my sister some other time.” He helped Lucille to her feet. “Come! You will be happier in your room.”

Lucille thought she’d be happier somewhere far distant from Bellamy House, but she allowed Delphine to take her arm. Clio watched their departure soberly. She, too, recalled the mishaps that had plagued Tess. There seemed to be an uncommon number of them, she thought in retrospect, and aimed at some purpose she didn’t know. She said so.

“I dislike your manners, miss!” snapped Sapphira, still smarting from her son’s highhandedness. “Don’t speak till you’re spoken to!”

“Put a damper on it,
Maman!”
advised Giles, watching Clio with a frown. “My cousin has a point.”

“There was the man who invaded her room at the inn and then the highwaymen.” Clio was touched by his defense. “And that carriage accident, when Tess so narrowly avoided injury.”

“And the man in the park,” offered Evelyn helpfully, then clapped a hand over his mouth. “Crickey! I promised not to tell.” The cat was out of the bag; the duke fixed his son with a stern eye and demanded to be told the whole. Unhappily, Evelyn obeyed.

“And,” concluded Clio triumphantly, “the man who accosted her at the theatre! Please, Your Grace, call in Bow Street! Send out a search party! It is obvious that Tess is the object of some plot!”

“Pooh.” Drusilla yawned. “The anxiety you are in has deranged your ideas, cousin!” She glanced at her mother to make sure Sapphira’s attention had not strayed. “I’m sure it isn’t wonderful, considering that you were set on an elopement tonight! A pity this has happened to overset your plans.”

“An
elopement!”
The dowager turned a hideous mottled red. “What the devil is this?”

“Perhaps,” mused Drusilla, “the young man ran off with Tess instead.”

This had not occurred to Clio who, it must be confessed, had accepted her imprisonment with resignation and no small relief. A person could only do so much, no matter how great her devotion to another and her desire for a happy ending, and Clio had exhausted her resourcefulness. Therefore, she had raised no outcry, lest someone appear to release her. As a result, she was guilt-stricken. It was not beyond the limits of credulity that Ceddie should have kidnapped Tess. What he would do with her, Clio dared not think.

“Cousin Clio!” With fascination, Evelyn regarded her ashen face. “Are you going to have the vapors? Shall I fetch Aunt Lucille’s hartshorn?”

“No,” Clio replied with resolution. “I shan’t swoon.” There was nothing she could do now but make a clean breast of things. No matter what it might cost Clio personally, Tess must be found.

But the duke forestalled her, and not inadvertently. “There was no elopement planned,” he said calmly, flicking open his snuffbox. “Drusilla is, as usual, stirring up coals. Do not distress yourself, Clio! I have already sent word to Bow Street.”

Sapphira greeted this intelligence with a terrible explosion of wrath, announcing herself cursedly provoked at the fuss made over a female who was no better than a lightskirt, and blaming Clio for the remarkable occurrences that had taken place since her arrival at Bellamy House.

“What a fix!” said Drusilla, happy to see the deterioration of the relationship between her mother and Clio, and not reluctant to worsen matters. “Neither
Maman
nor Morgan will thank you, Giles!”

Clio frowned, wondering what the Wicked Baronet had to do with this shocking state of affairs. Drusilla was quick to enlighten her. “You have your wish,
Maman!”
she continued brightly. “Tess’s disappearance will give rise to just the sort of scandal-broth that you wished. How clever of you to leave it to Morgan to bring the thing about!”

Total pandemonium might have resulted from this provocative remark—Clio had opened her mouth in absolute fury and the dowager had risen half out of her chair—but hasty footsteps sounded in the hallway. The door flew open; Sir Morgan, looking like the fiend incarnate, stalked into the room.

“Oh, Morgan!” cried Drusilla, the only one to have not temporarily lost the use of her tongue. “Is the thing done already? We must congratulate you!”

Sir Morgan did not immediately answer, being engaged in holding off Clio, who had launched herself at him, raking her fingernails down his face and plummeting her fists against his chest. “What the deuce?” he inquired, not unreasonably, as he caught her wrists.

“What have you done with Tess?” wailed Clio, tears running down her cheeks. “How could you? You are odious! This is unforgivable! Oh, poor Tess!” And then she lapsed into total incoherency.

“Here!” Sir Morgan delivered Clio up to the duke, who didn’t appear at all unwilling to have her weep all over his waistcoat once again. “What the devil is this all about?” He glanced quickly around the room. “Tess isn’t here?”

“No.” Giles suddenly looked very serious. “I conclude that your, er, plans went astray?”

“I was delayed.” Sir Morgan scowled. “No matter—I see now it was deliberate. What has happened here?” Briefly Giles explained. “Pertwee is also among the missing,” he concluded.

“Good.” Sir Morgan appeared unaccountably relieved. “All may not yet be lost.”

“I’ve sent for a Runner,” added the duke.

Drusilla had no interest in this cryptic conversation. “Only fancy!” she said. “Has Tess, then, run away like Mirian did? How odd of her! It will bring her under the gravest censure, of course.”

Clio sobbed.

“Draggletailed twit!” remarked the dowager, though whether she referred to her daughter or Mirian or Tess, she did not explain. “I knew it would come to this. And without your help, Morgan! You certainly botched the affair.”

This brought from Clio renewed wailing and protest. “You—you
seducer
!”
she cried, regarding Sir Morgan venomously from the safety of the duke’s arms. “How could you so deceive my poor Tess, and at a nasty old woman’s whim?”

From the dowager’s direction came a choking noise, and from Constant an unwise titter.

“I don’t know where you get those idiotic notions!” remarked Sir Morgan to Clio. “But I see I must disabuse you of them, if Tess is ever to have any peace. She has never stood in the least danger from me.”

“Bah!” snorted Sapphira. “I wonder you will be forever trying to humbug us all.” But she reckoned without her son.

“I have,” announced the duke, in so quelling a manner that even his mother fell silent, “heard quite enough of this nonsense! You will moderate your behavior,
Maman,
or you will be sent from the room.” The dowager’s mouth dropped open. “Furthermore, on the morrow the lot of you will begin to prepare for removal to the house in Marylebone. I will no longer tolerate this infernal mischief-making and meddling.”

“Giles!” Sapphira’s eyes bulged, fishlike. “You cannot mean to turn us out!”

“I mean,” replied the Duke of Bellamy sternly, “to do precisely that. I cannot comprehend how you could scheme at the ruin of a guest in this house. Can’t you see what the outcome of such a thing would be? You would have brought down scandal on all of us, most of all yourself.”

“Fiddlesticks!” The dowager was severely shaken, but still game. “You are making a great deal of fuss over the wench. Who is she, that you should be so concerned?”

“I do not need,” Giles said icily, “to explain my actions to you.”

“Where the devil is that curst Runner?” growled Sir Morgan.

“Dear Giles!” With a saintly demeanor, Drusilla knelt and drew Evelyn into her arms. “You cannot mean to leave your son without a woman’s tender care!”

The Duke of Bellamy glanced at his son, who looked as though he greatly looked forward to that happy state of affairs. His arm tightened around Clio. “I don’t.”

“I think you’re foxed!” Sapphira drew herself up to deliver a tirade on thankless children and serpents’ teeth. Drusilla prudently withdrew to a window seat, effectively divorcing herself from the scene.

Alas, the dowager duchess was interrupted by a further commotion in the hall. The door opened; the butler announced, in shaken tones, the advent of the long-awaited Runner. With him was Pertwee.

“Hell and the devil confound it!” ejaculated Sir Morgan, staring at the valet’s bandaged brow and stupefied air. Pertwee unhappily eyed the Wicked Baronet, and wondered if the duke would stand idly by while his valet was strangled on the spot. “I am very much afraid, Your Grace,” he said to Giles, “that I have failed in my mission. The circumstances were not what we had anticipated, and I was overpowered.”

“That he was!” confirmed the Runner, a dapper little individual with a chubby countenance and the beginning of a paunch. “We found him wandering in the streets, right mizzy-mazed. Aye, and that’s why I wasn’t there aforetimes, him not recalling his address.”

The others might gaze upon this individual with varying degrees of fascination, but Sir Morgan was not so easily distracted, nor was he unacquainted with this particular denizen of Bow Street. “Tess!” he interrupted, fixing Pertwee with a steely eye.

“There was a coach waiting and she was in it before I could stop her, sir!” Pertwee gulped. “Indeed, I tried my best! I even called out! And I had my hand on the door itself when I was bludgeoned.”

“What kind of a coach?” growled Sir Morgan.

“Very shabby, sir!” Pertwee exhibited disdain. “Not at all the rig of a gentleman.”

Why this information should please Sir Morgan, Clio had no idea, but it undoubtedly did. “Where are you going?” she cried, as he strode to the door.

“To find Tess. I think I may know where she is.” He looked at the Runner and jerked his head. “Come along, man, I have need of you.”

“But what will you do?” Clio insisted, not inclined, despite Giles’s assurances, to trust the Wicked Baronet.

“After I find her?” Sir Morgan’s swarthy features were very, very grim. “Probably wring her neck!”

“Never fear, missy!” said the Runner, as Clio gasped. “We’ll fix it up all right and tight!” He set off at a trot after Sir Morgan, who was already halfway down the hall.

“Hush, darling!” soothed the duke; Clio had once more dissolved in tears. “I assure you everything possible will be done.”

“Humph!” The dowager regarded this touching scene with a kindly eye. “You will apologize for your earlier rudeness, Giles!”

The Duke of Bellamy was not of a yielding nature, even when the lady of his choice was clasped very willingly in his arms. He turned on his fond family a face as cold as a marble statue. “Tomorrow,” he repeated. “All of you.” His icy eye moved around the room, resting on Drusilla, who was half-hidden in her window seat, moving to Constant, who dropped like an abandoned puppet against the sofa. “Oh, no!” groaned the duke. “Where the deuce is
Evelyn?”

Chapter 22

“I must say,” said Ceddie, clutching his ribs, “that it’s a damned poor way to repay your rescuer!”

“Balderdash!” replied Lady Tess absently, from behind him. “It’s the merest scratch. For which you may thank the dim light and those ridiculous corsets that you wear! Else I would have had you right through the heart.”

Cedric was not of a robust constitution, despite his sporting tastes, and this callous attitude made him feel distinctly lightheaded. He was extremely annoyed by the countess’s thankless attitude toward himself, and highly indignant at the treatment he’d received at her hands. Nor was Ceddie at all grateful for the fact that she had revived him by pouring an entire bottle of smuggled brandy over his head, or that she had torn her fine petticoats to bind his wound; and he was rendered hideously uncomfortable by the fact that she held him at sword point.